


On Broken Wings

by boazpriestly



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dragons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1863501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boazpriestly/pseuds/boazpriestly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A commission piece I wrote for a friend who requested a story about dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Broken Wings

The pen was too small with barely enough room for your mother to turn and curl around you. She managed, but it was tight and slightly uncomfortable. You huffed at the men as they stared at you, their fingers poking through the slats, trying to touch you. 

“Do not snap at them,” your mother warned, her thoughts so clear in your own head. 

“But I don't like them,” you told her. “They pinch my tail and pull at my scales.”

“I know, my love, but they choose our fates.” 

“How?” you asked. You were bigger than them, stronger. They were nothing but bags of meat and bones that barely knew how to stand on their own two feet. How they could rule over your kind baffled you. 

“It is the way of the world,” was all your mother would say. Then she pulled you close under her chin and covered your with her wing. “Sleep now, my love. Tomorrow will be better.” 

But it never was. The next days were always the same as the days before. Children came with their fathers to gawk at you and your mother, awing at the small flames that burst from your mouth when you hiccuped. It wasn't anything special, not really, but they gasped and cheered all the same. You hated it, hated them, but you could do nothing to make them go away. 

They came from far away sometimes. You could tell by the way they spoke, the way they rolled their letters or left them out completely. Those men scared you the most. They looked at you with unadulterated hunger. They wanted you, begged the old man who fed you if they could keep you. They called you beautiful and one of a kind, talked about the brilliant blue at the tip of your scales and how your fire came out green instead of orange like the rest of your family. They stared at you in wonder and reached into the pen to grab at you, getting angry when your mother hid you beneath her. They cursed at her and at the old man and then left only to be replaced by a much wealthier merchant days later. 

The cycle continued for as long as you could remember. And all the time you got bigger and stronger, while your mother got weaker. She said it was the pen, that the tight quarters were hindering her movements. 

“You're such a big boy, now,” she told you. “There is hardly enough room for both of us to stay together any longer.” 

“But I don't want to leave you,” you protested, nuzzling against her jaw. 

She coughed smoke now, instead of flames. “I know, my love. But someday you will have to.” 

“But mother...”

She nuzzled her nose against yours, humming low in the back of her throat, like how she used to when you were younger. “Someday,” she repeated softly.

But someday came too soon and your mother's health declined quicker than you knew how to process. Her scales began to dull first, losing their beautiful sky coloring and resembling an overcast morning more than you liked. Her eyes became muted too and before long, you realized that she could no longer see you the way she used to. Even her mind began to leave yours. 

“Mother?” you called during the night, hoping for an answer. 

“Yes, my love?” she would reply after a drawn out pause. 

“Will you stay with me a while longer?” 

“Just a while.” 

You kept the game going for as many nights as you could until the night she didn't answer back. You could feel she was gone before you understood what it meant, but it sank in quicker than anything you'd ever known. It hurt and you bellowed out your sorrows until the old man came running to see what was wrong. He cried when he saw your mother's body, and it was the first time you'd ever seen any human show anything other than anger or sick curiosity.

The old man's three nephews helped him carry your mother's corpse to the pyre to burn it. They brought you out of the pen for the funeral and let you sit next to the old man as he wept again. You mourned her as quietly as you could, but you still whimpered loud enough to make the old man wrap his arms around your leg and whisper, “She's in a better place, boy-o. She is.” 

After the last embers were finally out, everything changed. The pen, still too small, was now too big as well. It fit around you too loosely and it bothered you something awful. You'd lived your whole life with your mother always around you, what were you supposed to do now? 

Your answer came three days after your mother died, in the form of a sharply dressed man with bright ginger hair and a clean cut mustache to match. He looked at you through the pen, green eyes cloaked with something worse than the lust of the other men that had wanted you. This man made your scales itch. But he offered the most money for you, more than any of the other men combined. And the old man had nothing left to lose now that your mother was gone. You didn't want to go with the man, not now and not ever, but you had no choice. 

Humans chose your fate and this was just an example of how. 

The old man kissed you goodbye and apologized profusely before he handed you over to your new owner, but you'd already built up a wall against him. He was no different than the other men who wanted you for your scales and flames. So you hated him too. 

But something inside you broke when you climbed into the back of the carriage bed and watched your home fall out of view. It felt wrong, a finality you should never ever bear witness to. But the exchange was done and over with and somehow you knew you'd never see the old man again. 

It took three days for you to get to your new owner's home. You were a present for his nephew, he told you. “The boy has been wanting a thing like you for as long as he has been able to talk,” the man said, pulling the carriage up to an ornate half-castle. “and one as rare as you are is perfect for the brat.”

You learned quickly that word 'brat' was not a term of endearment, but a warning. The child screeched the second he saw you, making your ears throb in pain. He tugged on your wings and picked off your scales and sat on your neck as if he expected you to give him a ride. He didn't give you a name nor did he introduce himself to you. All he wanted was for you to be his pet, his plaything to show off to the other children in the home. 

For weeks and months you had to endure the endless tortures of the child and his friends. You were their enemy in war games and their whips and blunt swords left you with wounds you could only hope would heal. You were a way of transportation, punished regularly because you couldn't fly. 

“What good are you if your wings do not move,” they would shout as they kicked you and threw stones at your head. 

Eventually, they grew bored of you and moved on to the next big thing. They tied you to the stone wall behind the house and left you to fend for yourself. When they remembered that you existed, they'd bring you scraps from the night's meal, but often times you survived on whatever crawled by you or flew over your head. It wasn't enough, not like you used to be fed at the old man's home, but it kept you alive. 

A year went by before any child ever came to visit you again. Most of them just pretended you weren't there, like you were invisible no matter how large and in the way you really were. They didn't want you any more, you weren't beautiful to them. So when the small boy stood in middle of the backyard and just stared at you, you were sure you were imagining him. But he took a step closer to you, then three and four and five until he was right in front of you. 

Anger filled your body before you could stop it and you could feel the flames fighting to be released from your mouth. He didn't have a right to be near you. He was as low as the others, as evil as the boys before him. 

But even as you thought it, you knew it was a lie. This boy was different, you could feel it. And somehow, someway, you could hear his heartbeat in your head, the way you used to hear your mother's every night before you fell asleep. 

It was steady and it scared you. 

The boy looked up at you with big blue eyes almost covered by the long brown hair hanging over his forehead. You stepped back, wary. He stayed still. 

You stared at each other for the longest time, him just watching you silently and you trying to figure out what this new war game was called. 

“My name is Kiri,” a small voice finally said inside your mind. 

You huffed and snorted as if you'd just been made to sniff a fresh batch of ash. You didn't know what was happening, just that somehow this child had invaded your head. It was sorcery, you were sure of it. 

“I will not hurt you,” the voice tried again. 

You didn't believe it. The other boys had said the same thing before they struck you with their weapons and called you a demon. 

“The other boys are gone,” Kiri told you, stepping closer to you again. You didn't pull away this time.

“Where have they gone?” you questioned without knowing why. You hated those children more than you hated the men who hungered for your hide, but there was an ache in your chest at the mention of their absence.

“Away,” is all Kiri said. “Far far away.” 

“And you? Why are you here?” 

Kiri smiled, slightly. “I am much too young to go where they are.” 

“How come?” 

“Because school is for big boys and I am but a little boy,” he admitted. 

“How old are you?” you asked. 

He held up four fingers. “I'll be five next month,” he said. 

You wrinkled your muzzle and sighed. You had never played with a child so young before. He was small and looked as if you'd break him if you touched him at all. But he was the only one who had ever spoken to you besides your mother, and that had to mean something. 

“My name is Sprio,” you finally said. 

Kiri grinned and bowed to you. No one had ever done that before. 

“May I touch you?” he asked. No one had ever needed your permission before either. 

It took you by surprise, but you nodded and allowed the contact. Kiri was gentle and careful, stroking downward in the direction your scales grew instead of against them. It felt nice, for a change. 

“You're handsome, Sprio,” Kiri whispered. All you had ever heard from anyone was that you were beautiful and gorgeous, and it only ever meant that your were some prize to be won. But hearing something different, from the only person that had ever been nice to you after you left home, meant the world to you. 

“Kiri,” you said, closing your eyes and moving closer to him

“Yes?” he replied, still stroking your scales. 

“Will you stay with me a while longer?” 

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to your wing, “Of course.” 

You managed a small smile, too, and leaned further into his touch. Somehow, you knew he'd keep his word.


End file.
